"New laptop: Core i3 or i5?"

I've been reading about this for most this afternoon but I still haven't been able to decide what specs to go for. I hope you guys can share you expert opinions.

Needs:
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- Laptop for business trips and for photography shoots (I am an amateur photographer) Size/weight is important.

- Will use mainly for email, social media, internet browsing, Office applications, multi-tasking.
- Photoshop
- Light video (I can deal with this being slower on the laptop than my desktop, but don't want it to be TOO slow)

I think everyone would like the second option, but you need to think a bit. The big difference between i3 and i5 (other than minor total speed differences) is that the i5 is able to shut down one core and overclock the other to get maximum speed on a particular task, whereas the i3 acts more like the Core2Duo type of processor and runs both cores at their set speed whether both are being used or not.

Both computers you looked at are quite a bit faster than the Core2Duo machines of 3 years ago, like the one I am happily using just now. Both will cope happily with Photoshop, but you might find the i3 one is a bit sticky if you have to work with large spreadsheets. I sometimes have to update 30 000 rows in a spreadsheet, with a short calculation at each row (like =ColumnA-ColumnB) and even that is pretty slow on a relatively fast business desktop. If you are only doing the more common kind of spreadsheet task like charting a 24x3 table, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

When it comes to video, a lot depends on what you mean. If you want to play a video, you'd probably find both cope well; if you are compiling video clips into a single production and converting the format, you probably want the faster machine.

On the other hand, both are probably inadequate for any serious video work. One big problem is the shared graphics, which means that part of the system memory is taken over for the graphics (screen display). So you lose what you need in the processing area in order to get something workable in display. It is better to have discrete graphics for those purposes.

Finally, I'd give Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate consideration, the more so if you intend to use your computer for work. If you need to connect to a workplace domain you'll need Professional; and there are few benefits in the Home versions that are not outdone by the benefits of the Professional version. Ultimate is a bit specialised, though, so Professional will do just about everything you need.